A U.S. Citizen is 58 Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist

Most people have seen the number floating around social media that suggests that citizens are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist, but new data revisions suggest this number was dramatically underestimated.

The lack of accurate official records being kept in the important category of individuals killed by police was met with numerous efforts by citizens. One example, in particular, is www.killedbypolice.com. This site is used to more accurately track the number of people killed by cops yearly.

Previously, estimates of citizens killed by police were based on the self-reported data supplied by police departments, compiled into a yearly FBI uniform crime report for “justifiable homicide” by officers.

This information drastically underrepresented the number of people being killed at hands of police officers thus giving an unclear perspective of what is actually transpiring on the streets of America.

New data, as reported by the Guardian, suggests that an average of 545 people killed by police went unaccounted for yearly on average in the FBI data.

The revised estimates put the annual number of people killed by cops at an average of 928 per year over the past eight years; a conservative estimate. This information contrasts with the 461 reported killed by police by the FBI for 2013, a difference of almost 450 killings or nearly 50 percent.

When looking at terrorism, the U.S. Department of State reports that only 16 non-military U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2013, the most recent year data there was available data.

What this means is that a U.S. citizen is actually 58 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist.

Let that sink in for a moment.

You are almost 60 times more likely to have a police officer kill you than to be killed by a terrorist.

While civil liberties are rolled back in the name of “keeping us safe from terror,” under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA, the true threat to American freedom lies not some imaginary foreign boogeyman but rather here on our own streets.

The blue mafia is a much more dangerous enemy to the life, liberty and freedom of every U.S. citizen than the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and all other terror groups combined.

The genuine threat to America comes not from the outside but from within.

Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, freethinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has previously been published on BenSwann.com and WeAreChange.org. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.